Over New Years, I took a few day break from climbing to relax the body, let certain aches heal (at least a bit) and hang out with friends. We headed to Golden for about 3 days to snowshoe and try backcountry snowboarding for the first time!

I felt certain that snowshoeing was going to be the most awkward experience of my life... My feet are like 8 times their normal size and the snowshoe is like a flipflop that doesn’t properly fit your foot... At least I thought. Turns out, it’s easy... And fun, in a relaxing way. And more of a workout than I originally anticipated. Good way to work on my lower body and enjoy doing it!

The next day, New Years Eve, we headed to Roger Pass to go up Balu Pass. I can happily say, I will never again rent snowshoes to hike into the backcountry to snowboard... I’ll 100% be on a splitboard. Within 10 minutes I was pouring sweat, great way to cross train though!! Carrying a heavy snowboard on your back is tough, never mind kind of awkward.

Sadly we didn’t make it up to the top but the view from where we did make it to is breath taking! The whole way up, I kept wondering when we were going to start gaining elevation. Turns out, we’d gained a ton!!!

We snowboarded partway down and then decided to walk as tired legs could barely get up, never mind control a board. (Reason #2 to get a splitboard, not as taxing on legs on the way up.)

The experience was amazing and I would 100% go again (with a splitboard...)!! If you decide to try backcountry though, make sure you have the proper gear, are well trained or with someone who is for backcountry and take your time the first time out. It’s tough but totally worth the effort!

I think the few days off of my normal training did my body some good and I’m happy to have still gotten exercise in. Now it’s time to hit it hard so I can throw down at a few more local comps, then regionals and nationals!!! Stoked!!!